The daily grind: 9-6-13

The Daily Grind provides daily match-up advice for tinkerers and daily fantasy players. I welcome advice to help make this column more effective, including notice of impending weather events, new injuries, and changes to platoon situations. Ownership rates are from Yahoo!

The daily picks are a mixture of Daily League specific advice and information for the more typical fantasy owner.

Today’s weather watch

Today’s grind

Tomorrow’s grind

Pitcher (to start): John Lackey‘s ownership still isn’t skyrocketing. He’s currently at 61 percent, but he’s reliable enough to start against any team, even the Yankees.

Dan Straily versus Brett Oberholtzer offers a couple of flyball heavy, fringe choices. Straily doesn’t quite strike out enough batters to support his average walk rate while Oberholtzer has gotten the job done by allowing a lot of balls in play.

Corey Kluber will return from the disabled list tomorrow, but he will be limited to roughly 75 pitches, so beware. He faces the Mets, but I would sit this one out in case there is rust.

Alex Wood blew up painfully in his last outing, but that’s not giving me any pause in deploying him. His ownership is still at 46 percent and he will face the Phillies.

Tanner Roark will move into the rotation for the Nationals in the place of Ross Ohlendorf. The start will mark his first in the majors after he’s posted a 1.19 ERA (3.08 xFIP) in 22.2 relief innings. He’s split his time as a starter and reliever this season in the minors, but he’s not stretched out, so even the friendly match-up with the Marlins may not be enough to use him.

Pitcher (bum): David Huff isn’t particularly bad, but he faces a tough Red Sox lineup, is working on short rest, and has underwhelming stuff. The combination could lead to some crooked numbers. The game is in Oakland, so the flyball-happy tendency of the two pitchers isn’t as dangerous as it would be in Houston.

Jake Arrieta has a soft match-up with the Brewers, but he’s exhibited a walk problem in recent starts despite good results. The Brew Crew will field John Hellweg, who has his own walk problems and a low strikeout rate.

I wanted to highlight James Paxton in some way, but I can’t recommend starting him against the Rays. He improved his walk rate this season at the expense of his formerly elite strikeout rate, but the fantasy profile screams “adequate.” The Rays can be a tricky lineup to tame, so my money is on them.

I haven’t taken Junior Lake very seriously this season because his numbers are built entirely upon a .380 BABIP and he doesn’t stand out in any one category. Still, his start against Hellweg is enticing.

Even though Roark has had a great season, I’d still gamble on five-category monster Christian Yelich.

Hitter (speed): Guess who? Eric Young Jr. will face a potentially rusty Kluber and an early bullpen.

About Brad Johnson

Brad is a former collegiate player who writes for FanGraphs, MLB Trade Rumors, The Hardball Times, RotoWorld, and The Fake Baseball. He's also the lead MLB editor for RotoBaller. Follow him on Twitter @BaseballATeam or email him here.

Comments

I love me some Danny Salazar, but just be aware they’re holding him to about 75 pitches as well, so his last 4 outings have been 4,5,4, and 6 IP.

How would you rank these 2 start pitchers for next week: Nova (@BAL, @BOS), Arroyo (vs. CHC, @MIL), Gee (vs.WAS, vs. MIA), and Ubaldo (vs. KC, @CHW), who’s been on fire lately. I know you like Nova, but his k% is down to 17.9 since the break, his BB% is up slightly since the break and significantly the last few weeks, and he faces the 1st and 4th highest scoring teams in baseball next week on the road.